


And There You Are

by Broken_Clover



Category: Guilty Gear
Genre: Gift Fic, Happy Ending, Introspection, Other, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:55:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27831880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broken_Clover/pseuds/Broken_Clover
Summary: Venom reflects on his life
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	And There You Are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MamaNana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MamaNana/gifts).



> A gift for Nana for her Venom-verssary! I tried not to make this too downbeat. I know it's not much, but I hope it still makes you happy!

Sometimes, when he looks in the mirror, Venom can still see a reedy, trembling seven-year-old looking back at him.

Even if he tries, he can’t remember everything about his past. He must have remembered his birth parents’ faces before, but when he goes to dig through his memories, there’s nothing but a blur. Nothing about them, about their home, about his own name, the one he had before the Guild called him Venom. He must have had a different name, once upon a time, but try as he might, there’s nothing for him to recall.

The ratty little boy looks up at him with wide, nervous eyes. It’s a look Venom knows well. The Guild taught him to be afraid. To never put his trust in anything. Because that was the philosophy that had been beaten into him. Those who were strong were on top, and the cowards and weaklings at the bottom had to claw and scratch and bite to earn the right to live and to crawl up the Guild’s rungs. He himself had only barely escaped being crushed underfoot by the vicious cycle, but one of the few displays of mercy the Guild had ever shown had grabbed him by the arm and pulled his head above water. Claiming Venom deserved another chance, deserved another opportunity to become the model killer the Guild wanted him to become, and that he had potential that could not be squandered.

At the time, he had felt relief, warmth. Now, he felt cold.

He blinks, and the little boy becomes a young man in the Guild’s uniform. His shoulders are squared, his arms are neatly folded, and his expression is severe and confident, yet completely unaware of the fact that he is a young man in an adult’s shoes.

It’s strange to think he’d thought himself so mature and capable at that age. The Guild had successfully tempered him into a skilled assassin, of course, but that was virtually all there was to him. Even at the time, he’d known there was something missing. He had thought it was Zato, his ‘hero,’ his ‘saviour,’ one of the few things in his life he felt safe enough to vent his perpetually-shuttered emotions through. That was something the Guild did, made him feel as though even his own thoughts weren’t safe. Zato was his one safe escape, the only tether he’d had to cling onto for years.

Of course, he knows now that his idolized image of Zato was something that never really existed. He’d put the man on a pedestal, stuffed every possible virtue into him in some twisted projection, so afraid of losing the only beacon of happiness to exist in his world that he’d been willing to overlook the man’s atrocities, to even justify them. Zato was the lode-bearing pillar in his mind, as though if he were to ever be knocked out of place, Venom’s entire life would come crumbling down.

But when the dark cave of his life finally collapsed on itself, he had found himself surrounded by sunlight.

There was a massive world outside the realm of the Guild, that much he knew. But Zato’s absence from his life made Venom finally, truly take notice. It wasn’t a perfect transition, he found himself chasing a shadow for months on end, but eventually, something began to click. He grew restless. The outside world had warm food and twinkling laughter and songs and conversations and intimacy, and it called to him. Stuck as he was in his place at the Guild’s apex, the months only made him more and more curious.

Zato’s return had thrown his sense of closure to a screeching halt. How could anyone move on from a loss when the loss is undone? Venom was frustrated, offended even, by the idea of the universe toying with him in such a way. How could he cope with his feelings when he’d never been taught to do so? Was his bewilderment and shock really a rekindling affection?

No, of course not. Because then he had found something he never had before: a friend.

The Guild had allies, of course, but Robo-Ky was no such thing. He was coarse, foul-mouthed, unstructured, and difficult- yet warm. In Venom’s dog-eat-dog world, the idea of doing kind things for others that provided no real benefit to the self was rather irrational. It was only a way to be taken advantage of. But Robo-Ky had insisted his philosophy made him happy and complete. Despite treating him unkindly, humans were valuable to him, and the interconnectedness of them was what made life worth living. 

Venom’s existence wasn’t a tangle of lives, just a carefully-pruned bubble of distant associates. Robo was truly the first thing he could have called a real ‘friend.’

When he blinks again, he finds himself staring eye-to-eye with himself. He’s unkempt and dirty, clothes torn and with a tired look in his eyes. Yet, compared to the others, he still looks so much more vibrant and full of life. He’s seen the outside world, and begun to embrace it, however little. But Venom knows what that day was for him, and why he looks that way.

If he looks over his shoulder, he can almost see that strange man and his two associates again, impossible to read. Looking back at himself, he wishes he could tell that uneasy man what was going to become of him, but like most things in his life, he had to figure out how to react in the moment to make it out alive. He had to go in with the assumption it was a life-or-death situation, even when all along it had been carefully engineered to ultimately send him on his way with a final farewell.

Perhaps Zato gave him the task simply to get rid of him. Truthfully, Venom doesn’t care anymore. There are some days where Zato’s name and face don’t even cross his mind. He has customers to bake for and date nights to plan out. Felicity from the tailor’s across the street will be having her baby soon, and he’s promised to make her something special. Daryl’s coming over for dinner on Thursday. A sweet elderly couple visits early every week, so he always has to remember to have a warm tray of the cinnamon muffins they always order to share, teasing one another on who gets the larger half. Robo-Ky has already called, same as he does every other day, to chat him up about the state of his orchard and to gossip about rude customers (the man in the black boots came back today, complaining about the peaches being mushy)

He’s found his head full with all manner of thoughts, the sort his old selves wouldn’t consider caring about in the slightest. Useless things, silly things. But Robo had been right after all. It was all those little things that made life truly worth living. That make him happy.

All three of them look back at him simultaneously, each uneasy in their own way. He knows better now than to waste time worrying about what he could have done better as a child, when there’s nothing he can do to change it. The past is in the past, and even though it still haunts the edges of his mind, he has plenty of sunlight in his life now to send it skittering away.

When he finally sees his own reflection, his _real_ reflection, Venom is almost surprised by his own contented little smile. He smiles a lot more nowadays, without even thinking about it. People have told him it’s lovely. He’s not sure about that, but it does feel...natural. Good. Like it’s how he’s supposed to have been all this time.

Venom gives his reflection a little chuckle and walks away. What’s the point in wasting the whole day reminiscing? He has cream puffs in the oven, and the mailman’s going to be by soon. It would be rude to keep them waiting.


End file.
